Having a small, nimble car may have been important to motorists overseas, but the realities of American road travel meant that very few domestic vehicles would ever be taken over narrow, twisty mountain passes or road raced in the European manner. Yet while American cars were built to traverse wide ribbons of highway for hundreds of miles at a time (and navigate busy city streets at a snail's pace) it did not mean that the fun was over. It just meant that one's driving entertainment had to come from a new direction. Before long, passionate motorists realized that, while American speed limits were low compared to other places in the world, a car did not have to take forever to reach them.
Parks was born in Goltry, Oklahoma, in 1913. During the early 1920s his family relocated to California where he developed an intense interest in all things automotive. He attended his first event at the dry lakes during the mid-1930s and by 1937 had channeled his enthusiasm to help found both the Road Runners hot rod club and the Southern California Timing Association, ultimately becoming general manager of the latter. Desiring to combine his passion for vehicles with a need to make a living, Parks became a military tank test driver for General Motors then served in the United States Army in the South Pacific during World War II. After the war ended, Parks wasted no time getting back to the business of hot rodding and was one of the best known figures of the day. He stayed intimately aware of the progress that speed equipment suppliers and backyard mechanics were making during the early postwar years and also their exploits on the dry lakes in Southern California and the Salt Flats in Utah. By 1949 interest and participation among enthusiasts had become so strong that Parks decided it was time to organize the first SCTA Speed Week, which was held at Bonneville. In observing the action, Parks could not help but notice that, while top speed was still important to enthusiasts, interest in a vehicle's acceleration was growing substantially. In response to public demand, the first contest held exclusively to gauge a vehicle's ability to cover a measured distance in the shortest time was held in 1949 at Goleta Airport near Santa Barbara and presented by the Santa Barbara Acceleration Association. One year later, the first commercial event was held at an airfield in Santa Ana, the same Southern California town where the SCTA organized a number of drag races on a Navy blimp base.
A longtime friend of Robert E. "Pete" Petersen, Wally Parks became editor of Petersen's Hot Rod magazine in 1950, a position that gave him the opportunity and influence to form the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) one year later. His goal was to "create order from chaos" by introducing rigorous safety rules and performance standards that helped legitimize the sport. Appropriately, Parks was selected to be the newly formed organization's first president and the NHRA held its first official race in April 1953 on a section of the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds parking lot in Pomona, the same location that they race even to this day. NHRA staged its first national event in 1955 in Great Bend, Kansas. Called "The Nationals," the contest was later held at alternating venues around the country for maximum national exposure before finding a permanent home in Indianapolis in 1961. The Winternationals, NHRA's second event, was first held in 1960. By then Detroit had taken notice of the growing interest in quarter-mile times and was building brand new cars with ever more powerful engines to capture a portion of the market. Soon the ability to beat everybody else away from a stoplight became a matter of considerable pride among American drivers.
In 1962 a relentless increase in competitiveness brought about a new category of vehicle called Factory Experimental (FX). These cars shared the basic appearance of their road going counterparts, but were easily distinguished by the position of the body, which had been moved rearward (relative to the axles) for a more favorable weight distribution and better traction. As the quest for a performance edge continued further, these full-bodied drag racing vehicles became so specialized that they were built with very few production car parts except for the bodywork. Recognizing the need to adapt, the NHRA established its Pro Stock class for such vehicles in 1970. Ultimately, even the production based bodies were abandoned and replaced by those that bore only a passing resemblance to production cars. An unusually large number of people thought they looked "funny", a description that was ultimately included in the official designation of a new class of dragsters called Funny Cars.
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